SCAD

By Jennifer Clopton. Christine Shockey suspected she was having a heart attack when she awoke at 2 a.m. with excruciating pain shooting down her left arm. But it took medical professionals 5 days to figure it out — a delay that changed her health forever. Shockey went to the ER to have her pain checked out and told the doctors that 8 days earlier, her 43-year-old sister had a type of heart attack called spontaneous coronary artery dissection, or SCAD. The mother of two living in Council Bluffs, IA, was 42 at the time, a runner with no known health or heart problems.

By Gian de Poloni Pamela McKenzie was in her early 40s and fit and healthy when she suffered a severe heart attack, leaving doctors puzzled. It turned out to be an extremely rare disease — Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) — which occurs when a blood vessel in the heart tears open. Now she’s leading a nationwide campaign to offer comfort and support to other survivors.

By Karen Cicero You’re 35. Fit. Normal blood pressure and cholesterol. So there’s no way that chest tightness you’re feeling could be a heart attack, right? Not necessarily.